Passengers travelling by coach from Athlone to Limerick escaped serious injury yesterday afternoon when the side of their coach was sheared off after a collision with a lorry.
The accident happened at about 2.30 p.m. when the Bus Éireann coach was about to turn right for Birr off the main Galway-Dublin road at Fardrum.
A car transporter was in a collision with the rear of the bus and the impact was so severe, part of the bus ended up embedded in the transporter. The regional manager of Bus Éireann, Mr Ken Bryan, said it was miraculous there were no fatalities.
Thirteen passengers were travelling on the expressway coach, which left Athlone only 15 minutes before the crash. Three of them were injured and were taken by ambulance to Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe. One person was understood to have been discharged last night.
All of the passengers, and the bus driver, Mr Pat Byrne, were shocked and traumatised, Mr Bryan said, but they were able to continue on their journey to Limerick some time later on another bus. The driver of the car transporter, who was believed to be from the Athlone area, was not injured but he too was suffering from shock.
Mr Bryan said the coach was "a write-off".
"The transporter sheared right through the bus really. How somebody wasn't killed is beyond me."
One of the passengers, Mr Joe Lonican, said he didn't see what happened and only heard a loud bang. "I looked back and there was a girl on the ground," he said.
Last night two separate investigations into the accident were under way, one by the gardaí, the second by Bus Éireann.
Gardaí were on duty at the scene for several hours and statements were taken from several eye-witnesses.
Traffic travelling on the N6 outside Athlone was delayed for up to two hours, as one carriageway was blocked.
A Garda spokesman confirmed both vehicles in the crash were taken away for examination by Public Service Vehicle inspectors.
This was the second bus crash on the N6 in recent years. In September, 2000, three people, one of whom was Ms Gobnait O'Connell, a special adviser to the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Martin, were killed when a private coach carrying more than 40 passengers collided with two cars on the Dublin-Galway road at Leinster Bridge on the Kildare/Meath border.
The other two people killed were the drivers of the cars which were in collision with the Citylink coach.